By Genna Duplisea and Jess Farrell
At the beginning of August, the two of us participated in the Re-Imagining Organizational Operations Toward Sustainability (ROOTS) Summit organized by the American Library Association’s Sustainability Roundtable (SustainRT). The summit featured a keynote by Dr. Sarah Jacquette Ray, chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Cal Poly Humboldt. We presented an overview of ProjectARCC’s work and discussed climate change action with mission-aligned groups in the library and information science field from all over the world. Many more of these groups exist than we knew about before, and the summit offered opportunities to make connections for future collaborations with some of these other groups.
After the summit, SustainRT made several resources available:
- Recording of the keynote and the stakeholder lightning round
- Slides from the lightning talks
- Post-summit report
ProjectARCC also held an in-person “climate yap session” at the Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting in Anaheim at the end of August. This informal gathering brought together some long-time members with new voices. We discussed possible projects for the future, including interest in starting a climate writing group and submitting an information brief to the Society of American Archivists on the environmental impacts of AI. Back in 2016, ProjectARCC submitted an information brief on archives and the environment that SAA Council approved and published as a statement.
SAA hosted a zine table, and attendees snapped up Amy Wickner’s “Organizing Climate Action as Archival Workers” very quickly!
The dark half of the year offers an opportunity to rest and restore ourselves. As we move into this time in the northern hemisphere, we will be thinking about and discussing what ideas from this summer we can enact in the coming year. You can join our conversations – and start new ones! – on our listserv.
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